The History of CountryLink Parkes Elvis Holiday
The first CountryLink Parkes holiday was held on January ’93 in the town of Parkes, Central New South Wales. It is found 365 Kilometers west of Sydney, Australia. Lots of the eleven thousand towns folk are passionate about Elvis Presley but one man in particular is extremely keen about Elvis.
He was fascinated with the King when he was only five years old, after watching ‘Love Me Tender’ staring Elvis, that was in’59. He started his Elvis mementos collection at this age. But when he turned 16, he became even more keen about Elvis. In ’97, Neville and his wife Debbie made the trip to ‘Graceland’ the famous home of Elvis in Tennessee, USA, they returned home with 6 suitcases of keepsakes and Neville ‘deed polled’ his legal name to ‘Elvis’ with his Mother’s permission.
Neville and Debbie have a room in their place about the dimensions of a garage that is set up with nothing but Elvis mementos. Each year during the CountryLink Parkes festival, the room is open to the general public to view all the entrancing items he has picked up.
The month of January was picked for this festival as it would coincide with Elvis’ birthday of Jan 8th, and because it was actually the slow tourism time for the city.
The first year the holiday was given, it only lasted one night and over a few hundred folks attended. In the 10 years that followed, 1 or 2 more events had been added and a few hundred folks attended every year.
In 2004 and 2005, some new council members stepped in and had new visions and ideas. Now it has grown to 8,000 folks in 2008 that participated in the festival and more than eight thousand attended in 2009. The festival has grown in many ways, now the festival starts on Wednesday and last thru Sunday. The Festival has now more than 120 individual events during those five days.
The event starts in Sydney on the CountryLink Elvis Express train that takes people to Parkes. They are serenaded by Elvis the entire train trip. The majority of the major events are scheduled Thursday thru Sun., like the ‘Elvis Concert’ and the ‘Elvis Gospel Church Service’ and plenty more.
To keep your memory of the CountryLink Parkes Elvis holiday alive all year, there’s a special calendar you may purchase from www.festivalcalendar.com.au.
Learn more about the Parkes Elvis Festival.